‘The DUP is revelling in its moment in the limelight because it has no long-term strategy for Northern Ireland.’
Photograph: Paul McErlane/EPA

“In our view, there is no current prospect of these discussions leading to an executive being formed.” With those words, Arlene Foster turned towards Her Majesty’s government, “to set a budget and start making policy decisions about our schools, hospitals and infrastructure”.

The DUP is a party that loves power but hates responsibility. No, Sinn Féin is responsible for the collapse of the Northern Ireland executive. The British government should be responsible for the running of Northern Ireland. The EU will be responsible for a hard Irish border. Power, for the DUP, is not to be held nor shared but to be wielded. And wielded in defence of the few rather than for the good of the many.

The DUP perpetuates the idea that unionism’s position is precarious in order to bolster the rationale for its uncompromising stance

There are few pronouncements from the DUP that can be understood unless heard from the perspective of a DUP stalwart. And this is a party that knows its supporters. Nearly a third of its members are Free Presbyterians – a denomination (founded by the late Ian Paisley) which constitutes just about 0.6% of the population in Northern Ireland.

The DUP is revelling in its moment in the limelight because it has no long-term strategy for Northern Ireland – it has no motivation to have one. In the long-term – so a crude (and I believe misguided) reading of demographic trends would suggest – unionists are outnumbered and thus outvoted into a united Ireland. The DUP perpetuates the idea that unionism’s position is precarious in order to bolster the rationale for its uncompromising stance.

Why sit in Stormont making unpopular decisions about budgets and tedious policy decisions about those schools and hospitals when you can instead concentrate on Westminster? There, at least, you don’t have to share anything with Sinn Féin. And from there you can keep the whole of Europe waiting for you to give a limp thumbs up to Theresa May’s Brexit deal. And yet, the DUP’s decision to shrug off the pesky responsibility of devolved government has a material, crushing effect on Northern Ireland, most particularly on its young.

Behind the sectarian fronting, beneath the noise of faux indignation, is the quiet truth about Northern Ireland. It is a place where most people identify as neither unionist nor nationalist. A place where most people have a mixture of Irish and British identity. It is not “a place apart” but a place in which the entangled histories of Ireland and Britain take cultural, social, political and human form.

The electoral dominance of Sinn Féin and the DUP is not an expression of passion for hardline nationalism and unionism – it is a consequence of moderate voters’ fear of what hardline nationalism and unionism would mean for the fragile stability of this place. So centre-ground voters end up gaming the system and voting for the party best placed to block the hardline position that they most fear. And as they do, the complexity, the messiness, the nuances of Northern Ireland is wiped over by the simple narrative of distrust and division and blame.

Most in Northern Ireland don’t want to be forced to choose between Britain and Ireland – they shouldn’t have to. The 1998 Good Friday agreement managed to create an environment in which two-thirds of people – from across all communities – were content with the status quo. This incredible achievement centred on a relationship of trust and respect between the British and Irish governments, on the proper functioning of devolved institutions, and on close north/south and east/west cooperation.

Talks to restore power-sharing government in Northern Ireland collapse

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In an essay reflecting on the 20th anniversary of the agreement, one of my students wrote: “I participate in the democratic process, but I have lost all hope in Northern Ireland … I cannot envisage a future wherein the next generation of citizens in Northern Ireland can grow.”

She is one of the so-called Agreement Generation, born in 1998. In the declaration of support to that text, both British and Irish governments and all parties pledged: “We will endeavour to strive in every practical way towards reconciliation and rapprochement within the framework of democratic and agreed arrangements.”

The truth is that the parties at whose whim devolution stands or falls have neither the vision nor motivation to create a democratic space in Northern Ireland that embodies reconciliation and rapprochement.

• Katy Hayward, reader in sociology at Queen’s University Belfast and author of Bordering on Brexit, is writing in a personal capacity